Snackable Review: Holden VF Commodore

04 Sep 2015Car Reviews

After years of market dominance despite sometimes less than outstanding quality, Holden has produced a fantastic and fitting farewell to the famous Commodore nameplate, which is now being outsold by Toyota Corollas and Hyundai i30s. The VF is spacious, powerful, family-friendly and feels like a much classier car than its price suggests.

PLUS

It’s the best-equipped Commodore ever; even the entry-level models come with new goodies like hill-start assist, front and rear park assist, climate control and an eight-inch touchscreen media player with plenty of connectivity. Interior quality is a big step forward, too.

The huge, 495-litre boot should be able to take pretty much everything you can throw at it. If not, there’s always the Sportwagon with 895 litres of space and split-folding seats that fold down to create a whopping 2000-litre cargo area.

The car has grown over the past 35 years from a medium-sized replacement for the Kingswood into one that’s bigger in every dimension, meaning that no matter how tall your teenagers are, they’ll fit in the back.

It’s a great way to stand apart from the SUV crowd and have more fun driving.

MINUS

It’s big, which makes inner-city driving and parking more difficult, but no more so than bigger SUVs.

In a world where everyone is switching to small cars to save on fuel, the Commodore is heavy, which doesn’t help its economy, which isn’t as good as the similarly sized (and priced) Skoda Superb diesel or Subaru Liberty 2.5.

Holden has been slashing prices, which makes for a good deal today but horrible resale down the road, after they’ve slashed the prices again to shift the last of their stock.